Prat Bhatt

Prat served as SVP, Chief Accounting Officer at Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO). He led Cisco’s Controllership organization with global responsibility for accounting and reporting and financial controls covering all aspects of Cisco’s business. He has deep expertise in accounting & finance, risk management and financial controls and governance, operations, cyber governance, and financial data/systems strategy. Over his twenty-three year career at Cisco he led numerous key financial and business critical initiatives. His Controllership responsibilities included:

• SEC and statutory reporting, policy & technical, revenue recognition, mergers & acquisitions, supply chain, sales, leasing, real estate, treasury, etc. as well as accounting for Cisco’s segments and business units;
• Strategic development and continuous improvement for financial systems, governance, and processes;
• Leadership for Cisco’s world-class virtual close process;
• Financial leadership for Cisco’s ESG goals and initiatives;
• Sarbanes-Oxley governance for all financial controls and compliance globally; and
• Financial operations including global financial shared services.

Additionally, Prat has been a leader externally to Cisco, including:

• Currently serves as a member of the Board of Trustees for the Financial Accounting Foundation (FAF)
• Currently serves on the Board of Directors of Seagate Technology (NASDAQ: STX) and is the Chair of the Audit & Finance Committee;
• Currently serves on the Board of Directors of RingCentral (NYSE: RNG) and is the Lead Independent Director, Chair of the Audit Committee and member of the Compensation Committee;
• Past Chair of FEI’s Committee on Corporate Reporting (CCR) and longstanding member of the Executive Subcommittee;
• Past member of the Standing Advisory Group of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB SAG);
• Past member of the FASB’s Financial Accounting Standards Advisory Council (FASAC);
• Past Chair of the Board of Financial Executives International (FEI);
• Past Chair of the Financial Executives Research Foundation (FERF);
• Past Chair of the Audit Committee of the Cisco Systems Foundation;
• Regular guest speaker for the Stanford Graduate School of Business and other financial forums.

Prior to joining Cisco, Prat was with Kaiser Permanente as the Director of Financial Operations and in public accounting with Ernst & Young LLP. He holds a graduate degree in accounting from the University of Southern California, a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and is a CPA (retired).